Paying for pain

After receiving numerous recommendations on how to be more handsome, I had decided to bite the bullet and went for dental braces to correct my ever widening gap in my upper front teeth.

Since the decision has been made, I got my sister to hook me up with her friend, Wei Song who is a great dentist, for the job.

So here is what happened so far.

20 Oct 2011

After several X-rays and inspections, it was found that my lower jaw is slowly moving forward overtime, and is pushing my upper teeth apart. Thus, the gap in the upper teeth started to widen, and in the worst case scenario, it will cause me to lose my bite due to the misalignment with the upper and lower teeth. The good news is that I do not have any extra teeth that needs to be extracted before the braces go in.

I guess this gave me the go ahead to draw up the budget for the procedure as now I have a practical reason rather than a cosmetic reason. To sweeten the deal, Wei Song gave me a discount over the official price of $3800. The discount is so good that I must give him free advertising on my blog! Need a good dentist with steady hands? Look no further!

26 Nov 2011

To prepare for the braces, 4 rubber bands were placed in 4 of my molars. The rubber bands  will create a small gap for a set of metal rings encompassing the molars which will be used as the anchor of the braces.

The rubber bands gave me sore gums and molars for a week. Pfft...unknowingly to me at that point of time, that was just the start of the hellish journey. This journey will be a long long one. It will take up to 2 years before the braces can come off, and a retainer is "recommended" to keep the teeth from misbehaving for the rest of my life.

3 Nov 2011

The rubber bands were extracted and the braces went in after an hour of work. It felt alright for the next few hours, but slowly the braces started to make its presence felt.

1. Food got stuck everywhere after a meal. I hate to eat rice even more now.
2. My gums became sore for a week.
3. My teeth felt sore and the only working teeth are my molars. The scissors became my best friend during meals and the inter-dental brush for after meals.
4. Whoever designed dental braces did not take into account that the human mouth don't like sharp metal ends.
5. The time needed to brush my teeth increased several times due to the fact that the inter-dental brush needs to be used to cover the places where the toothbrush cannot reach.